Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Quite the Conundrum #mahalo

Conundrum Wines make a very tasty product - I bought one of their 2007 white wines from Los Feliz's epic Cap n' Cork Market - and they have paired it with an unusual marketing strategy.  Rather than focus their advertising on the wine itself, they're challenging potential customers to think about "conundrums" they face in their own lives.  The best way, the ads seem to imply, to answer some of life's most confusing situations...might be while enjoying a glass of delicious Conundrum wine?

At least that's my take on it.  No matter their underlying strategy, they have entrusted Mahalo with creating this "spinoff" Q&A site for them, called ConundrumLand.

http://www.whatsyourconundrum.com/

The thing that's interesting about the ConundrumLand/Mahalo Answers team-up, to me, is that the two sites can really work in concert, rather than as competitors.  ConundrumLand tends to focus on in-depth discussions, especially about topics like etiquette, relationships, work...personal sorts of conversations, like you'd have with your close friends, that tend to reflect the user's life experiences and backgrounds.  This is in pretty direct opposition to Mahalo Answers, which occasionally encourages users to share personal information but more often focuses on facts, data and actual research-able information.

If this little experiment works well, we'll have lots more of these kinds of sites focused on a variety of different brands and sponsors.  So if you're at all curious about knowledge exchange communities, or if you just have a few conundrums of your own you'd like answers for, I'd encourage you to check it out!

Posted via email from Lon Harris